The comment on your song
When you submit a song you can add a comment — the comment box under your selection (its placeholder reads "Comment (optional)… why this song?"). It's
optional, it holds up to 5,000 characters, and it's your chance to say what the song means to you,
why it fits the round's theme, or what you want people to listen for.
Comments are one of the better parts of a league. A round where everyone explains their pick reads
very differently from a round of bare song titles.
When your comment becomes visible
Here's the part people ask about. Your comment does not always appear straight away. When the
rest of the league can read it depends on a setting your League Admin chose for the whole
league, and you'll see the timing stated under your comment box before you submit.
There are four ways a league can be set up:
| Setting | When your comment appears | Is your name on it? |
|---|---|---|
| Full context | When voting opens | Yes |
| Reveal after voting | When results are revealed | Yes |
| Fully anonymous | Never — the league doesn't see it | No — neither your name nor the comment is shown |
| Player's choice | You decide, per song | Yes |
The first three are decided once, by the League Admin, and apply to every song in the league. That's
why the submission screen says "set by your League Admin" under the comment box — there's nothing for you to change,
and it's telling you what will happen to what you just wrote.
In a Player's choice league you get two options under the comment box instead, and you pick per
song: When voting opens, or When results are revealed.
Why a league would hide comments during voting
The reason to delay comments is to keep voting honest. If everyone can read "this is my late
grandad's favourite song" before they vote, that's going to move votes in a way the music itself
didn't. Leagues that care about the songs winning on their own merits tend to hold comments back
until results.
Leagues that are more about the conversation than the competition usually show comments right away —
people read them while they listen and vote.
Neither is more correct. It's a question of what your league is for.
If you're a League Admin
You choose this when you create a league, on the Settings step, and you can change it later from
Edit league (the league's ⋮ menu), except while a round is voting. The choice applies to the whole league, not to individual rounds.
A few things worth knowing before you pick:
- Changing it mid-league affects comments that are already written. Players wrote them expecting the timing that was in place at the time, so it's worth telling the league if you change it.
- Fully anonymous hides the comment as well as the name. A comment very often gives the submitter away — "this is my college band's first EP" — so an anonymous league withholds the two together, on the results card, the ballot card and the CSV export alike. Pick it only if you want the songs judged with nothing attached to them.
- Player's choice moves the decision to each player, per song — but it is a choice of timing, not of whether the comment is ever seen. A player who picks "When results are revealed" gets exactly what a Reveal after voting league gets. Use it when your league has a mix of people who want to explain their picks up front and people who'd rather wait until the votes are in.
Related
- Creating a League — where this setting lives during setup
- How to Play — submitting songs and voting, end to end
- League Rules and Scoring — the other settings that shape a round